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Don't Shoot Me, I'm Only the Software

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the it's-really-the-hardware-guys-fault dept.

ctwxman writes "How often have you heard about some massive crash and then the blame was placed on the software? "Disasters are often blamed on bad software, but the cause is rarely bad programming." If you've been looking to blame your boss, this article from MSNBC says your ship has come in! Poor planning, poor execution and poor leadership are more likely to blame than bad code when it comes to systems that fail. "

5 of 392 comments (clear)

  1. Bullshit! by Tom7 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The article cites as an example,

    Last month, a system that controls communications between commercial jets and air traffic controllers in southern California shut off because some maintenance had not been performed.

    As I recall, the system in question has to be rebooted every thirty days, which is a software problem! The very fact that there were ridiculous procedures to fail to carry out is due to the poor software in the first place.

  2. Biased View? by Araneas · · Score: 5, Interesting
    "In 90 percent of the cases, it's because the implementer did a bad job, training was bad, the whole project was poorly done," said Joshua Greenbaum, principal analyst at Enterprise Applications Consulting in Berkeley. "At which point, you have a real garbage in, garbage out problem."

    Translation: they didn't hire enough analysts

    ...said Bill Wohl, an SAP spokesman. "These projects require very strong executive leadership, very talented consulting resources and a very focused effort if the project is to be successful and not disruptive."

    Translation: They didn't hire enough consultants from SAP.

    "Developers are least qualified to validate a business requirement. They're either nerds and don't get it, or they're people in another culture altogether," said Michelsen,...

    Translation: It's not our fault the developers couldn't understand our brick of a business case.

    Another common theme in failures lies in the ranks of employees who actually must use the systems.

    Translation: It's not our fault the interface sucks - it's the stupid users too dumb to adapt to our software.

  3. Re:Irony by antifoidulus · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I beg to differ. People seem to think that "coding" is the only important aspect of software. It's far from it.
    Case in point, MS Windows. I actually read a book on programming security from the head of security at Microsoft(yeah, laugh all you want), and it gave some interesting insight to the corprate culture at Microsoft. The talking heads at the top want a shitload of features, and they want it by an unrealistic deadline(which, with the exception of longhorn, they almost always meet), and security gets pushed to the back, and maybe only added in as an afterthought.
    Contrary to popular belief here on /., MS does not hire idiots to write their code, but even good programmers aren't miracle workers. When they have their hands tied with a looming deadline and a feature list that only grows longer, they can't do it all, and bugs are bound to sprout up.
    I think Linux main security advantage lies not in that almost anyone in the world can look at the code(though that helps) it's that there is no "mono culture", you get a lot of interesting ideas contributed to the kernel, some are good, some not so good. Eventually the bad ideas fade away and you are left with a very solid operating system.

    --
    Monstar L
  4. Re:Irony by iezhy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...contributed to the Sept. 14 radio system outage over the skies of parts of California, Nevada and Arizona.

    The genesis of the problem was the transition in 2001 by Harris Corp. of the Federal Aviation Administration's Voice Switching Control System from Unix-based servers to Microsoft Corp.'s off-the-shelf Windows Advanced Server 2000.

    they violated the golden rule: dont touch the system if its working. and they were punished :)

    ...the move went well except the new system required regular maintenance to prevent data overload.

    wtf? the new system, designed to replace old one, was incapable to deal with data load? why would they "upgrade" it anyway?

  5. Customers & managers by vinukr · · Score: 5, Interesting

    One major thing that comes inbetween coding near-perfect software (Perfect software is never going to be possible) is also the demand the customers place on the team.Of course, they know very less about the technology and so cannot blame them totally.

    In India, software companies treat the customer as God accepting his/her unreasonable targets.. I wouldnt blame the customers alone for it... the managers too are responsible. They agree to whatever the customer says even though the actual development team asks them not to. And then, the normal work timings stretch to 10 AM to 3-4 AM next day... Now, anybody think anyone can write quality code when they are working this timing??

    Well, the only advantage that comes here is that we get to read all the /. stories